


and the river brings you home

by redandgold



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, slight AU: Gary comes back early
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 04:29:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5898280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's weird seeing him around the studio again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the river brings you home

**Author's Note:**

> Because it hurt too much.  
> 
> 
>   
>  _The Kübler-Ross model postulates a series of emotional stages of grief...wherein the five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance._   
> 
> 
>   
> ****

[01.]

 

It's weird seeing him around the studio again. Jamie's spent the last three months trying to figure out how not to mind the absence, and catching a glimpse of dark hair always jolts him. Almost, Jamie thinks, watching Gary sat opposite him running through clips on his own, like he never left. (Almost, except - )

A week after he comes back, they’re sitting on a bench facing the car park, waiting for Ed to sort his lines out before they start. Jamie glances over at Gary, opens his mouth, then closes it again.

As if sensing the movement, Gary turns to him. “I didn’t fail,” he says, his voice unshaking, his eyes very bright. “I didn’t fail.”

It’s the first thing he’s said to him outside of work. Jamie blinks.

“I came back because I missed punditry.” Gary’s looking at him like the world depends on him understanding this. “Not because I failed.”

Jamie’s hand instinctively goes up to reach for Gary’s sleeve. It meets empty air, and suddenly he’s sitting alone looking at Vauxhalls parked in neat little rows. He puts his hand on the wooden planks next to him, still a little warm. He thinks, I wish. I wish.

 

[02.]

 

Jamie never understood helplessness until he watched the Copa del Rey semi final.

He understands it a little better now, looking at Gary's face and the lines that hadn't been there and the rings, still fresh like scars, that cut under his eyes. After the fifth goal they had cut to the dugout and he had drawn a sharp breath, scarcely believing that it was the same Gaz, _his_ Gaz, who laughed at all of his shit jokes and once ate four pasties in a minute. This Neville looked like a ghost, old gaunt grey, and Jamie had felt his throat catch when he saw shoulders dip for the first time in twenty years. He hadn't watched the post-match. (Hadn't called because - what could you do? - only be one thousand two hundred twenty miles away and watch him crumble - )

He remembers thinking, at the time, that this wouldn't matter; that Gary would pick himself up again and carry on because that was what he did, that was what he does. Now he's not sure whether it was a promise or a prayer.

Two hours before the start of broadcast Gary throws his pen at the screen and says, "Fuck." It's not even loud, it's not like he's wearing red and Jamie's  wearing not-red and he's yelling in his face about offside, it's just _tired_ and makes Jamie bite his tongue. "Fuck," Gary says again, louder this time, and storms out of the room.

Jamie picks up the pen and follows (all he can do) and they're back in the car park, the bench. The frosty outside air nipping at their faces, Gary's breath curling into a pale silver cloud that dissolves. It's not supposed to be this cold.

"Gary," says Jamie.

Gary kicks at the ground, sliding his foot across the gravel and sending a million tiny stones spiralling into the air. "Fuck," he shouts, loudly this time, startling a couple of pigeons into flight. "How could I have been so much of a fucking failure? Zero wins in god knows how many games. _Zero_. Why would anyone ever listen to me again? All they're seeing on their TV screens is some has-been wanker who got ripped to pieces because he bit off more than he could sodding chew."

His voice is raw and hurting, rusty guitar strings that cut into your fingers as you press down. Everything about him is hunched, damaged, cracked, trembling from anger or fear or the cold, trembling without being able to stop.

"I did everything I could. Everything. And it wasn't fucking enough. It wasn't fucking good enough."

His hands are balled into fists and his brows are knit, and Jamie wonders when he came to care so much.

"Gary," he says again.

Gary stops to look at him, his brown eyes melting. He sighs and it drains all the years from him, till he's a twelve-year-old with knobbly knees being told he isn't going to make it. He says, voice barely above a whisper, "it's always been enough."

Jamie offers him his pen (his hand) (him). He doesn't know what else there is to give.

 

[03.]

 

Two weeks into the return and they're weaning him back onto commentary, starting him off with United games. A flicker of hope threads its way into Jamie's heart every time they step into Old Trafford, as stupid as it is; Gary's step gets just a bit lighter and his shoulders straighten out just a bit more. Jamie almost wants to thank the seventy thousand Mancs who sing his name. Twenty years of loyalty and this is his repayment, love that cannot be bought and cannot be destroyed. Listen, Gary, he thinks. You will always have this.

After United dispatch Everton, Jamie waits for the stadium to empty out before climbing up to the commentary box. Martin's already gone, but Gary is slumped in his seat, his eyes raised to the SIR ALEX FERGUSON STAND stamped in red letters over the pitch.

"I'd give anything," he says without having to finish the sentence. There's an edge to his voice.

Jamie comes to stand behind him and places a hand on his neck, surprised that this time Gary doesn't flinch away. "No you wouldn't," he says lightly, rubbing his thumb against the stubbly grey hairs. "You'll be ninety and still have that Chinese takeout menu."

Gary smiles a little, crooked and uncertain. Jamie feels his chest contract. It's a start.

"You remember how I never sang the anthem because I was thinking about the game?"

"Yeah. Wanker."

"At - in Spain - I'd pray. I'd make the stupidest promises. I'll buy the girls a pony if you let us win tonight. I'll quit the England job if you put a smile on Phil's face. I'll never set foot in - here - again, if you lead us to the Copa final." He looks up at Jamie, one hand clutching at the armrest of his seat. "Maybe that's why we lost. He knew I'd never be able to give that up."

Jamie's fingers wander down to the side, tracing Gary's jawline. "Did you ever promise never to see me again?"

"Yeah. The Sporting game."

"Wanker."

Gary turns back to face the pitch. "You know what the two saddest words in the English language are?" he asks presently. "'What if'. What if Negredo hadn't missed that chance against Madrid. What if I'd beat Lyon. What if I'd done better."

"Simple," Jamie says. "Then I'd be able to watch your ugly mug on television instead of having to spend the rest of my career being showed up by you."

Gary exhales and falls silent. The only sound is Jamie's beating heart. Finally, he says, "Maybe that's why we lost to Sporting."

Jamie looks at the seventy thousand empty seats. He supposes that's something they all have in common.

 

[04.]

 

It's been so long. Sometimes Scholes comes down to hang around the studio, and he and Jamie exchange looks over Gary's head. Jamie watches BT sport sometimes and marvels at the way Scholes's expression doesn't change when he has to talk about Valencia.

Gary tries, but then you'd expect him to. He watches the same footage over and over again, silently mouthing ideas and analyses, but he works alone. Jamie almost misses the 4am texts he'd get about _Borthwick-Jackson vs. Shaw?_ and the way he'd be banging on the door demanding that someone pull up stats on how many miles every Bournemouth player has run.

Now he only brings his ideas on the designated Sunday and offers them up like maths class and he's not sure of the answers. Not being a great manager doesn't make your punditry worth any less, Jamie wants to say, but he knows it won't matter. Now when John says he can't get the clips in the order Gary wants it, Gary looks down at the pen in his hand and says, "all right." Jamie swallows and has to look away.

That Monday night, just as Jamie's starting the engine, there's a knock on the door. He glances out of the window and wordlessly opens the passenger side, allowing Gary to slip in.

They sit like that, silent, for a few minutes. Gary says, "What's the point?"

Almost at the same time, Jamie extends his arm and Gary leans into his chest, rising and falling with each breath. "What's the point?" he says again, and Jamie curls his arm over his shoulder protectively, two of them against the world.

"Manchester United," Jamie says, as if that's an answer. Gary laughs.

"I wish." He stops laughing and swallows, his voice cracks. "God, Carra, everything's so cold."

Jamie pulls him closer. "You're a fighter, Gaz," he says, gravelly and rough. "You'll come back. That's what you bastards were always good at, weren't you? Coming back."

Gary whispers, "not always."

Jamie looks at the boy in his arms and suddenly feels older than he should. He finds his hand and squeezes it, trying to put everything into that touch, belief and hope and the knowledge that he, Gary Neville, will always, always, always.

"Ask me that question again."

Gary clings on to his hand. "What's the point?"

"You." Jamie feels his weight on his heart. "You are."

 

[05.]

 

Jamie doesn't know why this is important, but -

He remembers this one thing, nearly two months after Gary comes back, when suddenly his phone buzzes. It's probably someone telling him how delicious the picture of the cup of coffee he just posted on twitter looks. He slides it out of his pocket and checks the notification bar.

 

Gary Neville @GNev2  
enjoy that cup - only one you'll be holding this season!

 

He starts, looks over at Gary, sat on the other side of the studio. Gary's leaning back in his chair, twirling the pen in his hand. He catches Jamie's eye and the corner of his lip quivers, quirks, a smile so miniscule no one else could have seen it.

Jamie doesn't know why this is important, but he thinks, for some reason, of the wooden bench in the car park. Empty and old but facing the cars with shoulders straight. It's cloaked in northern rain and dappled silver, as if the moon has slipped inside.  

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> For Gary:
>
>> When the world perishes,  
> and all things cease to exist,  
> you’ll remain inside an ink stain,  
> a paint brush,  
> a song.  
> — Alaska Gold


End file.
